Where did you go?

I remember the times when
You and me were together
Where did you go my beloved
Can I not have you back?

Those parks and those slides
How we used to swing against the winds
Those stories and those songs
All faded in the darkness of past

Time heals so they say
But hurt is what it has given me
I want to halt this speeding life
And go back in time to meet you

I call out to you O' my Childhood
Where did you go?
Was it maturity who defeated you
Or was it you who betrayed me?

My Beloved Ahmedabad

Alive and Kicking
Rocking and Cheerful
Vibrant and Cozy
Safe and Charming
Rich and Forward looking

This is my city. This is my home.

I love you Ahmedabad ! And miss you too.

Whose fault is it?

(Indian IT Software and Services Industry US $ Billion)

AT WHAT COST ?

"We are under pressure, we need to push the limits and need to work harder. Guys (including gals), let's make sure we work at least 14 hours a day for sometime."

This is a dialogue from a project manager which should be familiar to all who work in Software Industry in India. The pressure never reduces. Days don't become shorter than 14 hours ever. And in a city as unsafe as Banglore and Delhi, women IT employees are the ones who suffer because of such attitude of management.

In 2005, a female employee working in HP at night shift was raped and murdered. In what can be called an eye opening judgment, the Karnataka High Court gave its verdict against Som Mittal who was HP's CEO then, charging him of negligence under Shops and Establishment act.

People might argue, a meager sum of Rs. 1000 as fine for Mittal as a punishment for a human life? The argument is indeed valid. The punishment is hardly anything in all practicality. But an important underlying issue is that the court recognized this as a problem and decreed that it is indeed a partial responsibility on the part of top bosses.

Many Indian IT companies have what I call pathetic HR practices. And I say this as I have worked in this industry for more than a couple of years and seen it happening. People are forced to work for 12-14 hours a day regularly and sometimes even more. The weekends are virtually non-existent. Woman employees are pressurized to work till late nights and even stay over night in the name of imminent delivery of product.

I have seen some project managers who would peep into an employee's mail box and would comment on personal mails if they see any. A newly wed friend of mine asked for a transfer because her husband was in another city. And the answer she got from the manager was, "You got married is your problem, not mine. I won't let you get a transfer"

Foul language, accusations, loud yells at the subordinates - all this is not a scene in any manufacturing shop floor. These are the scenes in a posh, centrally air conditioned and neat office space in a software company.

Who's to blame in this situation? Employees who are not committed to their work? Project managers who are constantly under pressure to get results? Sloppy hiring practices from recruitment? Senior management?

I see the problem manifold.

1. Top management is too obsessed with profit margins. They are so greedy to grab a deal that to reduce the cost estimates in a proposal, they would literally put half the effort actually required. What does this translate into?

'I will give you only 10 person months even though I know that you will need 20. Motivate your team and make them put a little more effort', says the project manager to a team leader. A little more effort? You are asking the employees to work double time.

I have seen this happen when I was a Project Lead for a project.

2. The top bosses set impossible targets for all the departments. So what do you do? You hire more people. But when you are given a target of hiring almost 4000-5000 employees in a quarter, your recruitment practices become sloppy. The talent level of work-force is compromised. And then you expect a mechanical or a civil engineer to pick up the pace in software development in a month or two. Is this realistic?

3. Middle level managers and team leaders are in a non-enviable position. They are pressurized from the top and even if they empathize with the employees below them, they are helpless. But what they should do is resist the force from above and at least make an attempt to shield the employees beneath them.

My plea to all such companies,
Before it is too late, please wake up and implement employee friendly policies. Don't treat employees as machines or slaves. If you want to spend time on the golf course and five star hotels' swimming pools, give at least a little time for the employees to take their meals with their families once a day.

P.S.
I do not want to mention any company's name here and if someone wants to infer my previous company by other means, I am not responsible. I have tried my best to protect my previous company's identity in this post.

HP Boss Guilty: Article link at
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/hp-bpo-rape-case-exboss-guilty-of-negligence/
59537-3.html

Image Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/adsections/indian/infotech/
2001/software_bar.jpg

Making Over Mumbai

An Article in Time

Click Here

A Google Horror Story

A must read
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/08/a_google_horror.html

Equilibrium (2002) - Movie Review

There are some movies which pass both the tests. Giving entertainment as well as driving across a message. Equilibrium is one such movie. I did not have any great expectations from the movie and I started watching it with a skeptical note. What turned out to be was 100 minutes of absolutely thrilling and adrenalin pumping entertainment.

Equilibrium is a Sci-Fi/Thriller movie in which the story begins after the imaginary Third World War has destroyed the earth and a handful of people have survived. These people are ruled by an organization which claims to have eradicated woes and agony from the world by eliminating the core reason for it all. And that reason, they say is feelings. So they have developed a drug which eliminates feelings and emotions from a human. And feeling is considered a crime punishable to incineration. They call it sense-crime.

Christian Bale is one such commander (Cleric in the movie's lingo) who realizes the true importance of feelings. He realizes that without feelings, there is no meaning to life. And then he rebels against the empire.

The movie very delicately shows feelings creeping up on Bale. Little things like a puppy's love for him make him realize that without feeling the life is not lived but just existed. Some dialogues too grab attention of a true movie lover. Like when Marie says to him "Without love, breath is just a clock .. ticking away.. " Some of the Matrix-like action scenes deserve loud applause. Bale has done a good job in acting.

IMDB review at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/

[Image Source: http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpapers/movie/
equilibrium/equilibrium_1.jpg]

In Rainbow

This picture was taken a couple of days ago from my department building at University of Arizona. The picture does not look even half as gorgeous as the actual sight.

[P.S. The name of the post alludes to In Rainbows album by Radiohead that I have been listening to since morning. And as a side note, those of you who love Brit Rock and Alternative, you should check out this album. All Radiohead fans like me would be obviously aware of it.]

Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking away ...
- From the movie 'Equilibrium'

Why I hate Yahoo Mail !

Every single day Mr. Abrahim Musa remembers me from 'His Desk' at International Bank of Africa and sends an email to me. He is supposedly an Auditing and Accounting Manager there. His problem is, his client has left a few million dollars in his bank and he is supposedly dead. Now he wants to be so nice as to give a piece of that to me. And he will help me establish myself as the dead man's Business Partner and help me get the money out of his bank. Very kind of him, I must say!

Also, every day, the manager of UK National Lottery is relentlessly trying to make me rich by making me win his lottery. They want all my contact information and they are so responsible that they put a notice at the end of the mail saying 'The information will be kept secret'. Secret from whom Mr Manager?

Another some Mr. Ousmane from Bank of Africa has the same problem as Mr. Musa. I wonder how so many wealthy old people died all of a sudden leaving their wealth in Bank of Africa. And this bank is in some place called OUAGADOUGOU , BURKINA FASO. Oh, by the way, Mr Musa also works at the same bank! (Surprise !!)

I don't know why Yahoo Mail's spam-guard (if there exists any) is so dumb. Every time I see one such mail, I tag it as 'Spam'. And still Yahoo Mail is not able to remember that just yesterday I had tagged this type of mail as Spam and there is not even a remote possibility that I would consider Mr. Musa's offer today after denying it for so long.

Speculations about Microsoft taking over Yahoo does not lessen my worries. I have never used Microsoft mail. And I am not sure about their anti-spam capabilities either.

I always fancy that given a chance to punish all the spammers of the world one day, I would hand out a 30 years imprisonment to every one of them. This 30 years period is significant and I have spent considerable amount of time on arriving at this number. The reasons why it has to be 30 years are manifold.

1. Spending 30 years in prison, the spammers would lose all the enthusiasm and energy to do their evil deeds of spamming innocent people like me.

2. There might be spammers whose evil may not have been eroded with time and age. But in 30 years, the technology would have changed so much that they will have hard time learning the ropes of spamming in those days.

3. And most importantly, in 30 years, I would be old enough and will not be using emails so often and thus I would not have to worry much.

P.S. while I am writing, Microsoft Promotions has sent me an email saying I have won 1 Million pounds.

Fun

Funny cartoons about Google and MS/Yahoo

Click Here

Darn !

Iron Maiden are performing in Mumbai on Friday, 1st Feb ! How I wish I were in India :(

[Image Source: http://alcamusicgames.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/
iron_maiden2tifbig1.jpg]

Blessings

I take a deep breath and inhale the fresh air deep till the lungs cry out 'No more'.
The clouds are sailing in the background of a light blue sky.
The trees are divine after a sacred bath.

I look up to the heavens and say, "Touch me O' Almighty. Bless Thy child."
And I feel the drops of rain streaming down my face.



[Image Source: http://www.praktica-users.com/img/pics/
mk_raindrops.jpg]

Something to smile about

The Teaching Assistant evaluations by my students of last semester has arrived. The subject was Analysis of Discrete Structures. Here are a few comments from them. I feel grateful. Thanks guys!


"Excellent TA, one of the best I have had"

"Thanks for all the work you put in"

"Very helpful with the homework. Thanks!"

"Great grading, very prompt and contains good explanation, Thank you"

"Our TA's were very helpful and made appointments outside usual office hours monitored the newsgroups carefully etc. I would like to have Bhavin as a TA again. Bhavin seems to know everything"

Time

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

- Time, Pink Floyd

Thank you Mr. Bloomberg

[New York] Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is testing his appeal nationwide as an independent leader, outlined a bipartisan agenda in his State of the City address Thursday, including some tough new law enforcement measures, a major tax cut and expanded social services.

.....In his address on Thursday, Bloomberg took veiled jabs at the declared presidential candidates, some of whom he has criticized in the past for being anti-immigrant.

At the start of his speech, he introduced several immigrant families who live in New York City and hail from Colombia, China, India and Italy, and said: "To those who are wailing against immigration, to those politicians who, all of a sudden, have embraced xenophobia, I say, 'Open your eyes. Take a look behind me. This is what makes America great.'''

[Article at http://www.1010wins.com/Mayor-Bloomberg-Delivers-
State-of-the-City-Address/1494366]

Run for cover

It is a dark night. There are so many people around me. All of us are huddled into some kind of a giant hall. There is pretty much nothing else in the room except windows.

The windows are open. But I think there is a lot of wind coming from outside which is making the windows smash on the frames. I feel cold too.

All the people have frightened look on their face. I don't quite understand what is going on around. And all of a sudden it starts to rain. It is raining fire from above. I see bright yellow fire balls coming down on us. And along with that there are bullets. It is unimaginably scary shower of fire and bullets whizzing past us.

People start running around like crazy. "Run for cover.. run for cover", I shout. People are stumbling on each other.

And before it could conclude, my eyes opened. Heartbeats racing and a dull trace of headache.

Not a very pleasant start of the day today for me!

A close call - Kahani Ek Damaged Passport Ki

"Hi, Good morning", I greeted her with my usual warm and affectionate smile. The official behind Korean Air's desk at the Mumbai International airport was a young, genial looking lady. "Good morning", returning my greeting with a reciprocative smile said she.

She took my passport in her hands and looked at her with a bit of puzzlement on her face. She called a man who looked to be in charge at the Korean Air area at the airport and gave him my passport. The man looks at it and says, "Sorry, but we can't allow you to fly without Immigration clearance of your passport. It is the case of damaged passport"

Darn, I cursed under my breath and looked at the passport. The lamination of the back page had been torn off and the page was exposed. Everything else looked in place. My negligence, I thought; I should never have kept the passport in my pocket. But I had not realized the gravity of the situation until I went to speak to the Immigration officer.

"Good morning sir", I started, "This is my passport and the Korean air people think it is a case of damaged passport and they want your nod before they can issue me a ticket"

The officer takes the passport in his hands and says

"Nahi ho sakta. Yeh to bilkul fat gaya hai. You can't travel with this passport"

I can't say I have never felt helpless and hopeless like this but this surely was one of those incidents in which your mind blanks out for a few seconds.

"Sir please. I am a student. My flight takes off in a couple of hours and I have to fly. I have no other way"
"Nahi ho sakta. Impossible hai. Agar humne yaha se permission de di to aapko aage jake problem hoga aur humko bhi musibat hogi fir"
"Sir you show me a way. What should I do now?"
"Cancel karva do ticket"
"Sir ticket to refundable nahi hai"
"Sorry. Bola na aapko nahi ho sakta kuchh bhi"

Now I had realized the pathetic situation I was in. Trying to find a reasonable argument, I worked out various scenarios in my mind as to how to go back to Ahmedabad, how to book a new ticket and so on. I continued,

"Sir aap apne sahab ko puchh lo ek baar. Unke paas koi raasta hoga. Please aap meri situation samjo. Yeh abhi Ahmedabad-Mumbai flight mein hi hua hai. It was not like this before I boarded the plane from there. It got damaged in my pocket on the flight"

"Thik hai, puchh leta hun", and he goes inside to meet his boss. A few seconds passed and I saw him coming out of his boss's office. My heart raced at the speed of a Ferrari.

"Impossible hai", and my heart sank. "Sahab bol rahe hai nahi ho sakta. Yeh bilkul damage ho chuka hai and we can't do anything. Naya passport banva lo"
"Sir, naya passport to kaise banva lun abhi. Usme to time jayega and I have to reach my college. Please aap kuchh kijiye". Now I had almost lost all hopes but yet I hung around for those last desperate few moments. As if waiting for the last and final blow in a fight.


"Sir please. Kuchh karo aap"
"Thik hai, jaao flight ke representative ko bula ke lao yaha pe"

Hearing this, I felt like a loosing boxer who got an unexpected time-out from the match referee.
I rushed to Korean desk and asked that person who had sent me to Immigration to come with me and deal with the situation. He looked uncertain but certainly unhappy with this. He clearly did not want to get involved. Helping a troubled man was not to his liking for sure. He mumbled something and called out another person to go with me. He turned out to be a real kind hearted man. He came along with me to the Immigration and met with the boss there, indicating to me when to speak, when to follow the boss, where to stand and so on. He certainly seemed to know the ways of bureaucracy.

"Why are you going to US"
"I am a student sir, I study at University of Arizona"
"What do you study"
"Masters in Computer Science"

He walks away to some immigration booth. This was definitely a positive sign. More time indicated less probability of rejection. He spent about 5 minutes there, came back and handed my passport to that Korean air guy and whispered to him about signing some agreement.

"Ho gaya hai. It's okey", he came to me, smiled and said.
"You just need to sign an agreement saying 'Korean air is not liable' for this"

Whatever. Let me out of here, I thought. So finally I signed that agreement and got my boarding pass. I almost flew away from there without looking back. Lest they change their mind and call me back.

Throughout the flight the thought of having problems at the LA immigration check troubled me. I have done nothing wrong and it happened while I was in flight, I kept convincing myself.

Luckily the immigration officer didn't seem to be bothered about that page of the passport and I had no trouble clearing the immigration.

Happy ending to a tense situation. Thank God for that. It reminded me of those trying moments during my visa interview where I had to struggle for more than an hour and thirty minutes to convince the visa people of genuineness of my case and establish my credibility.


P.S.

My sheer dislike for travel is not unjustified. I always get my checked in baggage in the end after every bag has arrived on the carousel. Whenever there is a connecting flight, the two gates are separated by at least a mile's distance which I have to walk. I hate packing. I dread those narrow seats and small legrooms on the flight. How I wish I could avoid those long queues at security check in and avoid the trouble of emptying everything on your body except clothes (Thank God and American Government for that). And now this incident!

[Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_passport]

Book review: Next by Michael Crichton

Dear Mr. Crichton

I have some difficult questions for you that you are not going to like.

Were you compelled to write this book just with monetary gains in mind? Because there sure is no soul in this book. Why could you not create intriguing and gripping plots like Airframe, The Great Train Robbery and Timeline? Were you in too much of a hurry to get a book out just for the sake of it?

I am really very very disappointed by this book, sir. The book has no strong pivot around which a story could firmly revolve. There were several loose threads in the story which you could not tie properly at the end. And honestly, the whole cloning issue is far too old and worn out now to impress anyone as a fiction work. Your book I read before this one was Prey. And that too had a glimpse of weariness in your writing. But this one was a complete failure in my critical point of view.

I am still not giving up on your established brilliance and mastery of writing a researched fiction. Hope the next one will not disappoint me.

(Still) Yours faithful
Gandalf

Forgive and Forget
Life is too short
Move on

Betrayed. Defeated. Humiliated.

January 6, 2008. Death of 'A Gentleman's game'.
Indian team defeated by the trio of umpires and Australian team's stinking attitude towards game.
Once again Australia proved that their cricket sucks.
Ponting is one of the worst, most greedy and unethical cricketer and captain of all time.
Symonds is opportunistic.
Kumble handled the situation very gracefully.
ICC is sold out to the anti-asian and racist clique.
BCCI's stand will be interesting to watch.